Experiencing God's Presence in Everyday Life

A collection of reflections and homilies that speak to God's unconditional love for each of us; and how, as brothers and sisters, we are called to love and forgive one another as God loves and forgives us.

Sunday, February 18, 2018

One of the nicest things
that anyone has ever done for me happened about forty-two years ago high above
the Atlantic Ocean. I had been working for a pharmaceutical company in international
information systems; and on one of my many trips to Europe, my boss decided to
make the trip with me.

Because of his executive position,
the company flew him first class wherever he went. I, on the other hand, as a 28-year-old
computer programmer, was relegated to economy. But on this, our first time flying
together, he chose to give up his first class seat and to keep me company in
economy. Some people thought him foolish, but I deeply appreciated it as a
gesture of kindness and friendship. It was a particular comfort to me as we hit
turbulence.

Many times when I look at
the cross, I think about that flight across the Atlantic and the meaning of
friendship. I can see Jesus hanging on that cross in much the same way as I saw
my old boss riding with me in economy. And it is a reminder to me that we are
not alone; that God loves us so much that he chose to leave the comforts of
first class behind; to step away from heaven; enter our time and space and ride
with us through the turbulence and crosses of life.

Eventually, the life of
every human being is overshadowed by a cross, probably many different crosses. It
might be the loss of a loved one or abandonment or rejection. It might be
poverty or illness or an incurable disease. And if not any of these things,
eventually we all face death, the end of our earthly existence. In time, life
brings each of us to the foot of the cross.

But, the message of the
cross is hope. It tells us that we are not alone; that God is with us in the
chaos and the darkness; he is present in the pain, the loss, the suffering; he
is there at he center of the turbulence, the center of the cross. And it is this
God who travels beside us through the turbulence and the crosses of life who
eventually will lead each of us to the resurrection of Easter morning.

What an incredible
friend!

As we move through this
season of Lent, let us reflect on the times of turbulence we have safely come through,
and let us rejoice and thank God for riding beside us and for being our friend.

Sunday, December 17, 2017

One of my favorite
Christmas songs isn’t really a Christmas holiday song at all. It’s a song
called, “One of Us”. Composed in 1995 by Eric Bazilian and recorded by Joan
Osborne, it was the theme song of the Emmy-nominated 2003 TV series, “Joan of
Arcadia”. 2

The show is about a
teenage girl named Joan who is visited by God disguised as everyday people. She
is given assignments by God that eventually bring healing and grace into the
lives of others.

The lyrics of the song
pose a question:

“What
if God was one of us?

Just
a slob like one of us

Just
a stranger on the bus

Trying
to make his way home” 1

I see this as a Christmas song
because it reminds me of the Incarnation of God into our world as Jesus Christ,
and that God is traveling alongside each of us as we journey through life.

God so loved the world
that he came to live among us. He chose to ride the bus of life with us; to
live, love, laugh, weep, suffer and die with us. God entered our time and space
just to show us the way to get home.

That way is ‘love’. Jesus
didn’t come to put burdens on our backs, or to appease an angry God. He didn’t
come to give us a bunch of new rules and regulations. He came to teach us how
to truly love and forgive.

When Jesus was asked what
we had to do to have eternal life, he gave a simple answer: “Love God with your
whole heart and soul, and love others - all others - the same way.”That’s what the Incarnation
is all about. That’s what Christmas is all about. It’s not really about giving
and getting presents. It’s about love and forgiveness.

When you and I were
conceived, God put a little piece of Godself into each of us. That little piece
of God is our immortal soul, it is our true self: -it is the presence of Christ
within us. And life - life - is the journey of our soul back home to God. It is
our bus ride to eternal life.But we don’t make that journey alone. God is always riding the
bus with us. All that God asks in return is
that we love and forgive each other as God loves and forgives us.

As we move through this
final week of Advent, let’s ask ourselves
how well we are doing with that. Are we kind and forgiving, or do we carry a
grudge? Are we inclusive, non-judgmental and accepting, or do we distance
ourselves from others because they are different or don’t measure up to our
moral or political standards? Are the doors to our heart always open, or are
there family members and friends whom we have shut out of our lives?

As each of us prepares to celebrate Christmas, the Incarnation
of God into our world, let us reopen any doors to our heart that may have been
shut; and let us reach out with love, forgiveness and kindness to all those who
are riding with us on the bus of life.

1/ Eric Bazilian. "One of Us". Recorded by
Joan Osborne. Relish. Produced by Rick Chertoff. Mercury Records, March
1995.

Sunday, October 8, 2017

The Roman Catholic Church is celebrating the 50th
anniversary of the restoration of the Permanent Diaconate. There are over
17,000 permanent deacons in the United States and over 42,000 worldwide. I have
been proud to be one of them since my ordination in 1992.

After marrying my sweetheart, Wanda, in 1968, and
raising our four children, one of my greatest blessings in life was finding and
joining Our Lady of Mount Carmel parish. At a time in 1984 when I was
disheartened by events around the world, and even within the Catholic Church, I
found this warm and inclusive parish.

Each Carmelite priest, Franciscan sister and Sister
of Saint Joseph I’ve met here has been a living example of God’s love. And you,
the members of our parish community, have consistently reflected the face of
Christ.

Over the years there have been many special moments
when I was filled with gratitude for being here at Mount Carmel. One of those
was the moment I walked into the narthex, the vestibule - as we used to call it
back in the Bronx, and read for the first time the plaque that holds our
welcome statement:

“No matter who you
are, no matter what you’ve done, no matter where you’re from, no matter where
you’re going, no matter how good or bad things seem, you are always welcome.”

The message on that wall is clear: We are all children
of God; we are all brothers and sisters. Everyone is welcome. There are no
exceptions.

But sadly, not every Catholic has heard that
message; not every Catholic has felt welcome in every Catholic Church. I have
friends who are gay or lesbian, and friends who have children who are gay or
lesbian or transgender who have felt unwelcome; who have been hurt; who have
been made to feel unworthy of God’s love.

The idea that anyone is ‘unwelcome’ or ‘unworthy’
because of who they are, is contrary to the Jesus we know in the gospel. In his day the
people of Samaria, the Samaritans, were despised and avoided as unclean by the
majority of the Jewish people. Yet Jesus not only sits down and chats with a
Samaritan woman, and reveals his divinity to her, but he makes the hero of one
of his best-known parables a Samaritan.

In another gospel, Jesus encounters a Roman
centurion, a pagan, someone completely outside of his religion. Jesus speaks
with him, heals his servant, and praises his faith. No strings, no conditions.

And how about Zaccheus, the despised tax collector
who climbed out on a tree limb to see Jesus without being seen by the
townspeople? Jesus not only recognized and acknowledged his goodness in front
of those same townspeople, but he went to his home and broke bread with him. No
strings, no conditions.

So for Jesus, there is no “us” and no “them.” There
is only “us”.

The gratitude and pride I felt in reading that welcome
plaque in our narthex has been intensified in recent years by the outreach and
example of our Church leaders. Pope Francis and our local archbishop, Cardinal
Joseph Tobin, are among many of our pastoral leaders welcoming, embracing and
respecting all God’s children, whoever and wherever they may be. They have been
reaching out with loving inclusiveness to our brothers and sisters in the LGBT
community. And they are role models for us to do likewise.

Here are some examples:

(from the New York
Times 6/13/17)

On May 21 Cardinal
Tobin personally welcomed over 100 gay, lesbian and transgender Catholics and
their families, from the five dioceses of New Jersey and surrounding areas, to
a pilgrimage Mass at Sacred Heart Cathedral Basilica in Newark. They were
seated on folding chairs in the sanctuary in front of the altar. “I am Joseph,
your brother,” he told them. “I am your brother as a disciple of Jesus. I am
your brother as a sinner who finds mercy with the Lord.”

Bishop Manuel
Cruz, rector of the cathedral, and eight priests concelebrated Mass. Bishop
Cruz told the people that the cathedral doors were always open to them “because we are children of God and our
identity is that we all belong to him.”

(from
Time Magazine July 28, 2015)

In 2013, Pope Francis
ushered in a new era of welcoming people who are gay when he asked these two
rhetorical questions: “If someone is gay and searches for the Lord and has
good will, who am I to judge?” and “Tell me, when God looks at a gay
person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and
condemn this person?”

(In 2016, Pope Francis wrote these words in his
apostolic exhortation on family life, “Amoris Laetitia” - The Joy of Love)

“ We would like before
all else to reaffirm that every person, regardless of sexual orientation, ought
to be respected in his or her dignity and treated with consideration, while
‘every sign of unjust discrimination‘ is to be carefully avoided.“

(Father James Martin, editor-at-large of the Jesuit
magazine America, wasappointed in 2017 by Pope Francis as a
consultant to the Vatican’s Secretariate for Communications. In his 2016 book
“Building A Bridge” Father Martin wrote)

“. . . respecting
L.G.B.T. people means accepting them as beloved children of God. The church has
a special call to proclaim God’s love for a people who are often made to feel
like damaged goods, unworthy of ministry and even subhuman by their families,
neighbors or religious leaders. The church is invited to both proclaim and
demonstrate that L.G.B.T. people are beloved children of God.”

(Father Dan, writing in our parish bulletin, tells
us that)

“both Pope Francis and
Cardinal Tobin have given very clear signals that reaching out to our brothers
and sisters in the LGBT community is the next step we should be taking in the
long and checkered history of our Catholic faith.” He reminds us that: “Our
parish that proclaims as part of our identity and mission the statement that
all are welcome here needs to continually demonstrate it.”

Some might argue that our Holy Father and our
archbishop and other church leaders are too liberal; that they are moving too
quickly, not focusing on or emphasizing the timeless and changeless rules and
regulations of the Church.

Others might say that these gestures are shallow,
condescending and patronizing; too little, too late; that nothing has really
changed in church doctrine; that the LGBT community is welcome only so far.

So, what are we to say?

Sometimes throughout history, and even in our own
lives, there is conflict, there is tension between who we are and the boundaries
of society, and even our Church. But in the final analysis we are called to
follow our conscience and to be true to who we are.

Jesus taught us that to have eternal life we only
have to do two things: love God with our whole heart and love others - all
others - the same way. Everything else is passing.

Life isn’t an either/or
proposition; it’s a both/and reality.
We are called to love and to live within the tension of the both/and as we, and the Church, move
forward in time.

Parish outreach programs to the LGBT community vary
but they have a common thread of welcome, support and the sharing of stories.
As a parish family, let us continue to reach out and welcome all of God’s
children without exception; let us continue to reflect the face of Christ; and
let each of us be a living example of those words on the wall of the narthex:

“No matter who you
are, no matter what you’ve done, no matter where you’re from, no matter where
you’re going, no matter how good or bad things seem, you are always welcome.”

Monday, June 19, 2017

‘Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.’Jesus gave us a wonderful gift: he brought God into the
center of our lives and taught us that he is like a loving father.Today is Fathers
Day.It is a good time to remember that each and every one of us —
male and female alike — is called to mirror the fatherhood of God.

It
is a great joy for me as a deacon to baptize a child.The joy of
administering the sacrament is magnified for me by the fact that I am a father
myself.Wanda and I have been blessed to raise four wonderful children;and I know — first
hand — the joys and responsibilities of being a parent.

The
greatest responsibility of a parental father is to mirror the unconditional
love of our heavenly Father.Fathers have been given a very special mission in life:We are called to
teach our children that God is unconditional love.

And
we carry out this mission, we teach that lesson,not with books, not even necessarily with words;we teach it by loving
our children, unconditionally, without strings, no matter what.

God
loves us in a personal and unconditional way.The seed of that love is inside of each of us.And that seed is
watered to grow into a beautiful flower by the love we receive from our parents.

But
that flower can still grow even in the absence of parental love,even in the presence
of abuse, or abandonment, or neglect.That flower can still grow even in the harshest conditions;because that seed is
innately watered by God’s grace.

That
flower blooms in our lives when we make the transition from receiver to giver.When we say ‘yes’ to
the presence of God’s love in our life,and when we choose to share that love with others.

I
have known people who have suffered greatly because they did not experience the
love of a parental father.But I believe we have a choice: we can spend decades in
depression over what we missed as a child, or we can
cross over the bridge, make the transition from receiver to giver and become a
father for others.

We
can become a father for others not only in a parental way.We can be a father
to our children,but we can also be a father to our workers, our students, our
patients, our clients, our parishioners, our friends, to all those with whom we
interact.

This
type of father is neither male nor female;it is the bearer of unconditional love,it is the mirror of our heavenly Father.

God's
love comes alive in our world when we let it flow through us to others.So this Fathers Day
let us thank our heavenly Father for our blessings.Let us reach out to
our parental fathers, living and deceased, with love and compassion, and if
need be, forgiveness.And let us make Our Father who art in heaven visible here
on earth through the love that we share with others.

Monday, May 15, 2017

There’s a song by
Christopher Walker that Peter Coll, our Music Director, often plays during
Mass. The song is entitled, “Because the
Lord is My Shepherd” and its refrain sums up why I became a deacon:

Lord, you are my Shepherd,

You are my friend.

I want to follow you always,

Just to follow my friend.

I have felt the Lord’s
presence throughout my life as my friend. He has been with me at the heights
and in the pits; when I felt joy and surrounded by love, and when I was
depressed and felt lost in the universe. I want to follow him always, just to
follow my friend.

My life has been blessed in
so many ways: I am a husband, a father, a grandfather, and a permanent deacon
in our Catholic Church. Each day of my life I thank the Lord for his
friendship, for my sweetheart Wanda, for our children and grandchildren, and
for the love of so many souls I’ve met along my journey.

I was so very fortunate 25
years ago to be planted here at Mount Carmel: to serve you, my sisters and
brothers in our parish community; to have the friendship of the many Carmelite
Fathers who have served here over the years, and the five wonderful pastors who
have been our shepherds: Fathers Bob, Kurt, Ashley, Leonard, and now Father
Dan.

It’s a privilege and a joy
to serve alongside Father Emmett, Sister Regina, and Sister Nora, and my
brother deacons, David and Michael.

Thank you, Wanda, for your
love and for being my best friend throughout these first fifty years of our
marriage and thank you for your unwavering encouragement and support of my
ministry as a deacon.

Thank you, Lord, for my
life, for my family, for the gift of faith, and for all my blessings.

Monday, March 27, 2017

“Forgiveness
is the answer to a child’s dream of a miracle by which what is broken is made
whole again, what is soiled is again made clean.”

*

Lent is a special time of year, a gift that the Church gives us. It
is a reminder that each of us, without exception, is called to holiness. And
what is ‘holiness’, really, but ‘wholeness’: being all-together in body, mind
and spirit; being totally connected with God. No fractures, no splinters, no divisions.

Over the last three weekends we have been reminded that Lent calls us to
Holiness. And
we’ve heardthat holiness calls us to
Listen to what Jesus tells us in the
gospel and to Repent for the times
when we have failed to embrace and share God's love. But there is still one
more thing that holiness calls us to do - it calls us to Forgive.

In 1956, Dag Hammarskjold, who was then Secretary
General of the U.N., commenting on the meaning of forgiveness said,
“Forgiveness is the answer to a child’s dream of a miracle by which what is
broken is made whole again, what is soiled is again made clean.” This is the
kind of forgiveness that holiness calls us to embrace. It is the act of letting go of
the past and accepting someone back into our heart.

But it’s not so easy to do. To genuinely forgive
someone in the way that Jesus calls us to, we must be willing to accept the
reality that a person’s faults and personality quirks will probably not
disappear overnight. Jesus asks us to forgive even when the person who hurt us
is not sorry; and even when we know that despite someone’s sincere apology,
they are likely to hurt us again. He asks us to look into the eyes of someone
who has hurt us deeply and to show that someone love and acceptance rather than
anger and rejection.

To forgive like this is a choice that God gives us.
When we forgive, we are choosing life, and love and a relationship for
ourselves and for others. We are relieving ourselves of the burden of carrying
around anger and bitterness. And we are giving someone else the freedom to live
out his or her life - or maybe to rest in peace - with the knowledge that they
are loved without strings.

By so doing, we are opening the door for true
healing to occur: healing within ourselves, healing within another, and healing
within a relationship. We are opening the door for holiness.

I minister as a hospital chaplain for our sisters and brothers who
suffer with emotional and psychiatric illness. Some have been
institutionalized for a very long time and we have formed friendships over many
years. Others have had a temporary breakdown as a reaction to a deep personal
loss or some severe stress.

As people share their stories, I have seen that many who suffer like
this are carrying a heavy burden - they are unable to forgive. Sometimes
it’s another person: someone who has hurt, betrayed or abandoned them.
Sometimes it’s God who is blamed for taking a loved one away in death.
Sometimes it’s even oneself.

The latter case, the inability to forgive oneself, is one of the most
insidious causes of depression. It stops us from finding
peace and from trusting in God’s love for us; and it keeps us focused on
ourselves.But how do we forgive ourselves when we are
carrying around guilt and shame?

There’s a wonderful short
story by the Japanese Catholic novelist Shusaku Endo that speaks to this kind
of forgiveness. The story is entitled The
Final Martyrs* and it is set in 17th Century Japan during the
persecution of Japanese Christians. I’d like to read a brief summary of this
powerful story.

In those days, the Emperor had declared it a capital offense
for a Japanese to practice Christianity. At first hundreds of people were
crucified, burned at the stake, broiled on wooden gridirons or thrown alive
into sulfur pits. As the persecution wore on and countless Japanese martyrs
held to their faith, the government became more and more enraged and sadistic.
It tried to make Christians deny their faith by the cruelest of tortures, and
those who renounced Jesus publicly were allowed to go free.

Endo’s story is about a group of young adult Christian men who
have known each other since childhood. They belong to a village that has
secretly practiced Christianity for more than 100 years. One member of the
group is named Kisuke. As a child he was big, awkward and accident-prone. Being
ridiculed often, Kisuke reached adulthood with no self-esteem. As they grew up
secretly practicing their faith, the other young men often predicted that if
they were ever to be caught by the government and tortured, Kisuke would
quickly renounce his faith and betray Jesus.

The government learns about the village from an informer and it
is raided and burnt to the ground. Kisuke and his friends are arrested and
confined to a tiny cell to await torture. His friends remain steadfast in their
faith and urge Kisuke to pray to Jesus and Mary for strength.

But listening to the screams of those being tortured becomes
too much for Kisuke. Before his turn comes, he cries to the guards that he is
ready to renounce his faith. He leaves his cell in shame never able to look
back upon his friends. The other young men are tortured brutally but no one
renounces his faith.

For the next two years they are moved around Japan from prison
to prison. One by one they begin to die until only two remain. After witnessing
so much suffering, their faith has weakened and they are close to despair. And
then one day they see a tall awkward figure being led to their cell — it is Kisuke.

After he is shoved into their cell by the guards, his friends
ask him how he ended up being brought back for torture after having renounced
his faith. Kisuke tells them how he wandered around Japan for two years filled
with shame for betraying Jesus. Until one night he could no longer bear it.

He stood alone weeping on a desolate beach preparing to end his
life. He cried out to the ocean: “Oh, if only I had been born a different
person. If only I could have been strong and brave like my friends instead of
the worthless coward that I am.”

From behind him, Kisuke heard a whispering voice. It was the
voice of Jesus: “It’s alright, Kisuke. I understand. Just go back to be with
the others. Even if the fear and the torture are too much for you to bear and
you have to betray me again, it’s alright. Just go back to be with the others.”

And Kisuke did go back.

His friends’ faith was renewed by Kisuke’s story along with
their love for him. As his turn comes to be led to torture, his friends tell
him, “It’s alright, Kisuke. Even if you have to betray him again, the Lord
Jesus is happy. He is happy that you just came back.”

There have been moments
in my life when I felt like Kisuke standing on that beach; when I looked at my
life and reflected on the times I had betrayed Jesus by failing to love and be
present to others. But it is in those painful moments of self-reflection that I
can hear Jesus whispering to me.

He asks that I just come
back and try again; that I let the process of transformation unfold over time -
his time not mine; that I understand that the miracle of Jesus is not immediate
perfection but rather a lifelong process of falling on the floor and getting
right back up again.

Like Kisuke was filled
with shame and self-doubt, we sometimes hear a little voice in our mind that
keeps putting us down; a voice that tries to make us stop following Jesus by
telling us that we are not good enough, that we are filled with blemishes, that
we are worthless. But we know that voice is lying. You see, we’ve been to the
beach; we’ve heard Jesus whispering to us - and we will never be the same
again.

This
Tuesday evening we will have a communal Penance service. The sacrament of
Penance is a gift that Jesus gave us. It brings
about healing and wholeness in our soul. Let us give ourselves the gift of this sacrament.
And as we ask for God’s forgiveness, let us open our up hearts and forgive
those who have hurt us. Let us make amends, where possible, and forgive ourselves
for any thing we’ve done or failed to do that may have caused hurt and pain to
others. Let us place any guilt and shame we’ve been carrying into the loving
hands of God and trust that we are truly forgiven.

Lent calls us to holiness and holiness calls us to
forgive - to forgive others and to forgive ourselves. “Forgiveness is the answer to a child’s dream of a miracle by which
what is broken is made whole again, what is soiled is again made clean.”